Tyson Suspends CFO After Arrest on Drunk Driving Charge

(Bloomberg) -- John R. Tyson was suspended from his role as chief financial officer of Tyson Foods Inc. after he was charged with alleged drunken driving — the second arrest involving intoxication charges in the past two years.

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Tyson, the great-grandson of the company’s founder, was previously arrested in late 2022 after a woman found him asleep in her home in northwestern Arkansas. He was charged with public intoxication and criminal trespassing.

The CFO was pulled over after midnight Thursday in Fayetteville, Arkansas, when a police officer observed his silver sports utility vehicle speeding and striking a curb, according to a preliminary report from the University of Arkansas Police Department.

An officer detected the smell of alcohol coming from Tyson’s vehicle, and, after performing sobriety tests, Tyson eventually told the officer he had been drinking five to seven Miller Lite beers at a bar. The CFO later provided a blood-alcohol content sample with a reading of 0.191 — more than double the state’s legal limit of 0.08 — according to the report.

The company’s shares dropped 1.6% Thursday to the lowest level since March 7. Tyson Foods named Curt Calaway as interim CFO, the company said in a Thursday statement. It didn’t comment beyond a brief statement.

The latest arrest may raise questions over Tyson Foods’ treatment of the executive in the previous case. That incident came just a month after Tyson was appointed CFO. He received support from the board of directors, which said it “has continued confidence in his ability to lead Tyson Foods as CFO.” The board includes his father and board chairman John H. Tyson.

The younger Tyson, 34, apologized at the time, saying “I’m committed to making sure this never happens again.” He then resumed his duties and often spoke on behalf of the Springdale, Arkansas-based company during earnings calls with investors.

That high-profile arrest followed another case of bizarre behavior from a corporate executive. In September 2022, Beyond Meat Inc.’s chief operating officer — a former Tyson executive — was immediately suspended after he was arrested on allegations that he bit a man’s nose during an altercation after a college football game, also in Fayetteville.

Some investors have pushed for reforms at Tyson, on issues such as the company’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak, in which slaughterhouses became coronavirus hotspots. But the Tyson family controls nearly all of the Class B shares that have a advantage on shareholder votes. More recently, Tyson Foods has struggled against persistent food inflation, weighing on the company’s efforts to quickly restore profitability after a plunge in results last year.

(Updates shares move and adds details from Arkansas arrest beginning in third paragraph.)

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